


Intimate Rewind

by DivineVarod



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Birthday, Closeted Character, First Kiss, First Love, Gay, Loneliness, M/M, Memories, Pre-Slash, Regrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 15:28:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5670904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineVarod/pseuds/DivineVarod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Plagued by loneliness and longing Rimmer decides to relive his first and only experience of love in the AR Room. A startling surprise makes him realize that even there he cannot escape his feelings for Lister. Who really is the love of his life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intimate Rewind

Rimmer couldn't put a time or year on how long ago it was. - Three million years? Of course. But physically, for him? He just wasn't sure.  
  
“It must be about 720 at least …”.  
  
That thought slightly panicked him every time.  
The most bizarre thing was that sometimes it would feel like yesterday. During those times he could feel those hands, the soft lips. He could hear that voice telling him to “hang on”, that one day he'd be free. The pain would be over. One day he'd be truly happy.  
That memory always enticed a bitter chuckle from the reflecting Hologram.  
“One day” … Well that day was really taking it's sweet smegging time. It had probably lost track of the ship.  
Rimmer swiftly banished the bitterness from his precious memory, stirring his mind back to the hands, the lips, the eyes. Then once more the voice, the words.  
So very young, so very long ago, so very scared, so very much in love.  
A smile, a Scouser accent a fiery almost fearless personality that would protect him.  
  
Hang on … was his memory playing tricks on him? Could this be?  
  
Breathing heavily Rimmer sat up in his bed. He had to check to see he wasn't imagining it.  
Softly so he wouldn't wake Lister, Rimmer slipped out of the bunkroom.  
  
After checking no-one would see him at least ten times Rimmer stealthily entered the AR Room. He sat himself into a booth and plugged in his lightbee. This was something he'd secretly been doing a lot over the last few years: re-watching and reliving certain moments from his life.  
He never returned to the bad parts, he remembered all the bad parts only too well. That was the problem. Rimmer had suffered so much misery over the endless decades, centuries his tortured life had lasted that the few good bits were in danger of getting lost.  
  
This memory was one he had never returned to as it was the most important one of his life. But tonight he needed to return, he needed to see, he needed to feel. He also had to know.  
  
With a trembling hand Rimmer selected: 18. The car, his love. The two of them inside that car. He had found it.  
Sighing shakily Rimmer immersed himself. Within seconds he was back inside the car and soon he could feel the warmth he'd been denied for so long. He could feel his lovers warmth engulfing him; warm arms around him, soft kisses on his lips. He could hear that voice again. He shivered: it was unmistakably, undeniably Scouse. He looked and drank it all in. He could gaze into those naughty twinkly eyes in which he could see such genuine love.  
Someone had once looked at him with love in his eyes? His heart sang. He could not believe he had forgotten it.  
He saw the naughty but kind smile when he, Rimmer, asked for more – more kisses more fondling. If only they'd been able to … but he forced himself not to think about regrets now.  
That smile again, that smile that indeed resembled … Oh who was he kidding? He'd known it from the moment he met him. That was why he'd acted so frosty towards him. He had hated him because he reminded him of … the love of his life? Before Lister he'd always thought so. Now it was all so muddled, so confusing. But this one moment had been real and he wished he could stay there forever.  
  
Rimmer re-winded. He wanted to be kissed again, held again. He wanted to hear those words again. Starved of love for so long Rimmer re-winded and re-winded. He tried to forget the twisted notion that in some sick way he'd been in love with the same man for all eternity. He tried to ignore the fact that he'd been in the closet for hundreds of years.  
  
Just one more rewind.  
Rimmer did not want to let go, not that night. It was his birthday. He had never told Lister when his birthday was. No-one knew, except Holly, but she was long gone. He'd never celebrated his birthday after the night he was now recalling. (It had never been celebrated before either anyway.) It was the night he'd had his first, and, in many ways last, true kiss.

One more re-wind, just one more. Back. Back to be safe, safe in the arms of …  
  
“Rimmer, are you okay?” A Scouser lilt sung-sang in his ear. Startled Rimmer unplugged his lightbee so fast it physically hurt. He hardly felt it, his only overriding emotion being fear: how much had Lister seen? To his horror he only now became aware of the tears that had been streaming freely down his face.  
“Rimmer are you alright?” Lister asked again, more urgently now.  
Rimmer shook his head. “I don't know …” he heard himself say. It was true, he really did not know.  
Lister wasn't mocking him, he noted quietly, maybe he hadn't seen …  
  
To Rimmer's surprise Lister sat himself next to him in the booth. “You're shivering man. Are you cold?” Rimmer shook his head. He hadn't even been aware he'd been shivering. "You're not ill are ya?" Rimmer shook his head again. Lister sat closer to the dazed man and wrapped an arm around him. Being the tactile person he was, he was completely oblivious to how intimate gestures like that could throw Rimmer.  
Normally the Hologram would freeze or run away, scared he would reveal too much. But today … today he needed it, needed it so badly. He allowed himself to luxuriate in the touch, revel in the real human warmth. To his joy Lister seemed in no hurry to release him.  
“My birthday gift …” Rimmer thought, with only a hint of bitterness.

To his utter astonishment Lister chose that exact moment to turn to him, grin one of his most adorable grins and say: “Happy birthday Rimmer …” Rimmer looked at him in sad dismay. “How … how did you know?” he stammered.  
“Always did …” the man shrugged and planted a big, sloppy kiss on the Holograms tear stained cheek.  
  
Rewinding the memory every night for the next few weeks, Rimmer always wondered if Lister had meant his birthday or something else …


End file.
